Love Under Construction (Love By Design 1)

“Are you going to stand there or get in bed already? I’ve been up since five this morning.” He snapped.

“Oh, sorry.” Climbing up into Hunter’s bed, it was ridiculously soft and inviting. Shit, maybe I would get drunk more often if it meant getting to sleep in here on his pillow top mattress. My brow furrowed. I didn’t really want the drunk hungover feelings that went with it, so maybe not.

I lay a bit awkwardly at first, close to the edge of the bed. My mind wandered and circled a bit, seeing this go in a million different directions.

“You planning on falling to the floor, sweetheart?” Hunter’s voice was muffled by the pillows until his arm snaked around my middle and pulled me back into the center of the bed.

Ungracefully and bug-eyed in the dark, I let out an Oof!

“Guess not.” Mumbling face first in a wad of bed sheets, our legs managed to tangle comfortably and my ass rested against Hunter’s crotch. Squeezing my eyes shut, I wondered if that was his belt buckle or his cock resting against me and my damn lace butterfly panties that were ready to fly off at a moment’s notice. Yeah, definitely cock, and my body flushed with an unexpected heat that would melt those mariposa suckers off my ass. I was equal parts turned on and mortified lying in my best friend’s bed, spooning. Yes, it was all gloriously horrifying and sadly plutonic.

Hunter let his chin rest over my shoulder and his breath came in even beats. I didn’t know he how could manage to remain so unaffected by this… situation here. His arm rested over me and when I wiggled just a smidge to adjust how our… uh… parts in the back were lined up. He squeezed me harder until I stopped moving. Settling in for the night, I realized the jerk was out cold and now I was wide awake, wondering if his hand would drift inappropriately. Would I even object if it did? He made me feel protected, and I realized that any guy before Hunter wasn’t much of a man at all. I fooled around in college. I wasn’t completely innocent, having a worldly experience in the city. I even kissed a girl and learned it wasn’t my thing, but having these burgeoning feelings? Yeah, those confused me.

“I can hear your brain working. Can you turn that off?” Hunter’s gravelly voice and his breaths pushed my loose hair down over my neck. I guessed he wasn’t sleeping and completely unaffected after all.

“Duly noted. Since when did you get a king-sized bed in here?” If we were both awake we might as well keep talking. It was years since I’d seen Hunter’s little craftsman style house. Back then he still had the queen-sized bed from his aunt and uncle’s because he was too big for a full bed.

“The better to keep my harem tied to.”

I glanced up, in the dark I could make out iron rings attached to his canopy bed posts and wondered if he wasn’t kidding. “Oh.” Disappointed, it wasn’t the answer I’d expected from Hunter.

“It’s a joke, Taylor Jane, relax.”

“Ha, I’m laughing all the way to the bank.”

Hunter slipped his hand over me and tickled a sensitive spot under my arms. “Now you are,” he said, eliciting real laughs at my expense.

“All right, Uncle! I don’t need to puke in the bed, Hunter.”

“God, please, no. This thing is an antique.” Maybe that explained the iron rings… for right now, I was going with the antique explanation.

We both chuckled, and I snuggled more deeply into the bed, a bit more at ease since our banter. This time when I felt Hunter’s erect cock between us it made me giddy and I closed my eyes on a sleepy drunken smile with visions of silk and iron rings dancing in my sated head.

17

Hunter

Those brief years in the Marines taught me many things. One was how to sleep soundly when I could and also to remain as still as possible. Taylor Jane was snuggled up so tight against my dick if she wiggled I was going to blow my load in my jeans like some teenage fool. I’d taken off my belt to sleep, but my dick was straining too tight inside my pants. There was no way she couldn’t know I had a raging hard-on.

Was sleeping in the same bed with my best friend a good idea? No, of course not, but I was worried she might start coughing or choking if she got sick again. I didn’t think I’d ever seen so much stuff come from one little body. There really wasn’t much hope for it and here we were. I should have thrown a pillow between us, but honestly I craved her next to me like the good old days when we were innocent kids horsing around before the hormones caught up to us ruining everything.

Part of me was a little curious to see what could happen. Would she turn to me in the night? Drool all over the pillows or notice that I put her nightlight in my bedroom? Taylor Jane’s head was as much of an enigma now as her heart. Since my parents had died and I’d come to live with my cousin, she had been my one and only steady friend. I didn’t add people to my circle willingly; some like Kristen, her brother, Chase, and Whit had forced their way in to stay. I wasn’t willing to lose that over my raging libido.

It took her some time to settle into my arms and lose the ridged feel of her body. She was tiny resting against me, delicate, but I knew better than anyone that she was a reinforced steel backbone. All these years of friendship and we never talked about her mom’s death, or my parents. Strange to think of it now with her nestled close to my heart, I thought I guarded it well but she proved me wrong, and I supposed it was simply better to let sleeping dogs lie. My plan was to be there for her in whatever way I could. In due time she would either grieve or rage at the world, same as me, and I would let her have her momen

t. Losing parents seemed like the worst kind of connection to share but there it was.

Sleep of course took me much longer. I thought about everything I could to settle the rising problem inside my jeans I used thoughts of Brittany to simmer me down quick. I guess she served her purpose after all.

Morning came late for the both of us in the form of Damien texting me.

Damien: Get up, Cunt-Hunter!

Hunter: Do we really have to start the morning with that, Damien?

Damien: You owe me breakfast for babysitting last night.

Hunter: As if you minded.